


Deadlifts

by Telltalelily



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings (Movies)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Lindir is a widower and he's sad about it, Magical elves, Multi, Old Bilbo, The Figwit scene from Lotr, Why can't I write stories where no one is dead?, you know the one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-09 02:11:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15257118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telltalelily/pseuds/Telltalelily
Summary: Following the death of his husband, Lindir returns to Rivendell and tries to move on with his life, but this proves difficult. However, a conversation with an old hobbit who knows something of grief leads him to begin a new journey.





	Deadlifts

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really know what this is, but it made me get up in the middle of the night to write it, so I hope someone somewhere enjoys it :)

The trees crowded close to the trail, the gentle giants bending their branches down toward the elven procession as if to enfold them in an embrace. Ferns sprouted around the base of the trunks like children clutching at their mother’s skirts. The forest at night was astoundingly beautiful and melancholy, Lindir noted. The lights from the lanterns the elves carried on their way to the Grey Havens glittered and danced on streaks of mist, making them appear as veils of light. Aside from the occasional snorts of the horses and the ebb and tide of the soft laments his people sang to the place they were leaving forever the silence was thick around them. No conversation could be heard, and no musical laughs rang out. This was a party of elves too weary to remain but sorrowful at leaving.

Lindir was no exception. He walked silently at the side of the Lady Arwen’s horse. Her face was pale but composed as she rode along the trail, and he envied her apparent ease of mind. Lindir felt his own countenance must surely betray his inner turmoil as he tried desperately to bring the conflicting halves of his heart to some sort of peace.

He did not want to go. A darkness lay upon all of Middle Earth, one that grew stronger each and every day, and yet he mourned to leave it all behind. For two thousand years he had been an elf of Rivendell. For a mere thirty years, an elf of Dale. He had lived in immeasurable happiness and recently, in the grief of a widower.  
And yet he could not remain. He had tried to stay in Dale to support Bain as he took the throne after the death of his father, but had found that, like Bilbo Baggins before him, he could not remain in the home of his love when he was gone from it forever.  
He had seen Bard everywhere he went. That first night when Lindir had retired to their rooms and gazed at their bed with it’s cold sheets, he had known he could not stay in the home he had made with his husband. For the sake of his love of Bard and his children, he had tried. But everywhere he looked, another memory came to his mind unbidden. He would turn a corner and recall Bard leaning over a fountain as he discussed repairs with the work crews that rebuilt the city. Or he would look toward Erebor and remember how Bard, with his grim face but sparkling eyes, had joked with Dain at a dinner. How he had combed through Bard’s silver hair with his fingers in the bath. The morning that he had first ridden into Dale and met a king with sad eyes and patched clothes. Almost thirty years’ worth of memories of a life together had crowded and suffocated him during every minute of every day, and he had desperately fled back to Rivendell to find some sort of peace in a place where no one remembered the whirlwind romance of Lord Elrond’s envoy and the King of Dale.

It hadn’t worked. Rivendell was just as it had always been, and its gardens were just as peaceful as before, it’s terraces just as beautiful. Lord Elrond had welcomed him back, and he had tried to fit back into his old life. Here, where he wasn’t Bard’s tragic husband, but efficient Lindir who had gone on a journey and was now returned. Elves live life at a slower pace than Men, and Lindir had found it difficult to adjust to it again. But Lord Elrond had been kind, and his friends had welcomed him back, and all the while he had felt as if he would choke on the famed peace of The Last Homely House.

There were no reminders of Bard there, just as Lindir had thought. He had browsed among the books in the library, and none of them dealt with the proper way of tying fishing nets. The sundrenched streets meandered through gardens and past fountains, to market places where elves respectfully conversed in low tones and waterfalls where harpists played in harmony with the sound of water. There were no dwarven voices haggling fiercely or merry jigs being played in the Hall of Fire. Somehow, Lindir had felt even more bereft by this lack. Rivendell held no memory of Bard. Lindir was the only one who had known him, who remembered him, and sometimes, in the deepest part of night, Lindir wondered if he had even been real. Perhaps it had all been a dream, one dreamt and cherished until he could no longer remember that it was but a trick of the mind.

Bilbo Baggins taking up residence had saved him from madness, he was sure. Lindir remembered the rumors that had still been heard sometimes in Dale, of a hobbit and a King and how their love had been ended by death on the battlefield. He quickly befriended the hobbit and marveled at how healthy and happy he looked. Perhaps the rumors had been wrong? Or perhaps Bilbo had more to teach him about coping than he could have hoped?

Lindir had brought up the topic discreetly while discussing the situation in the East over tea. When he had revealed his marriage to Bard, and made subtle hints about death and grief, Bilbo had studied Lindir with frank appraisal as he puffed on his pipe.

”I believe I have a fair idea of what it is you wish to know,” the old hobbit had said, and Lindir had involuntarily leaned in closer.  
“And I will tell you this, for the sake of my friend who loved you: grief does not become a lighter burden to bear. Always, you will wonder if more time together, or less, or perhaps never meeting at all, would have changed things for the better. Always, you will long for him. But it does become easier, just as carrying heavy barrels of ale becomes easier the more you do it.”

Bilbo had looked away then and stared at the fire with unseeing eyes. The vibrant hobbit suddenly seemed much older to Lindir’s eyes, much more worn down by time than usual, as if he had dropped a glamour to allow Lindir to see beneath it. He absently wondered if he would even have marked this change before his time in Dale. It was a subtle thing, for Bilbo’s thinning hair stayed the same shade of grey, and his wrinkled skin was just as spotted as before. But somehow, he appeared to have deflated, like an old ball that had been left in a corner for too long.

”I will say this only once. I could not stay when Thorin died. I went home and tried to go on with my old life, though it felt like squeezing into an old, too small coat. And now I am here, where I remember him speaking with me and reading mystical runes by moonlight, but do not have to look upon the place where he was taken from me. A place in between all or nothing, untouched by grief.”

They had sat in silence, both lost in thought, until Bilbo had suddenly cleared his throat and shook himself as if to shed the atmosphere of melancholy they had descended into. He had smiled at Lindir then and assured him that he would find his way.

“After all, you survived this long, did you not? It seems a shame to give in to the dramatics of Tall Folk after all this time,” he had said and patted Lindir’s hand.

And Lindir had known what he needed to do. 

Lindir was honestly surprised that he hadn’t died of grief that first morning; when he had woken up, and Bard had not. He had held on to life through the breaking of his heart, but it felt like clinging to a rock face in a thunderstorm, and now his strength was at its end.  
So, he had joined the exodus of elves on their journey to the Grey Havens, and from there–Valinor. Peace. Healing. A land beyond grief. That was his choice. It was the only choice, if he wished to live, and he would live on, even if only because Bard had wished it. And yet it was more difficult than he could have imagined bearing the thought of leaving Bard’s grave behind him. Once, it had nearly killed him to see the beautifully carved coffin lowered into the earth. It had been irrefutable proof that Bard had went where he could never follow, and he had refused to ever look upon the grave again. And yet it was a physical reminder that Bard had lived, that he had existed and loved and laughed. Now, a fresh wave of grief threatened to overwhelm him at the thought of never seeing it again.

He was tired of pain. He sighed wearily. Perhaps a bit too loudly, as Arwen cast a concerned glance his way. He forced a small smile to reassure her that all was well, but perhaps it was not as successful as he had hoped. She frowned down at him for a moment more, when something seemed to catch her gaze among the trees. Lindir turned his head to look, but he could see nothing but mist and darkness lurking among the vegetation. Nothing but shapes in the mist, indistinct at first but slowly taking on the appearance of shaggy brown hair and kind eyes as a lanky man seemed to peer out from behind an oak tree. Lindir stopped breathing. He– he would know that face anywhere, even among a thousand Men. Bard stood in the swirling mist, illuminated only by the weak starlight that found its way down through the canopy, smiling adoringly at him. The figure raised its hand in farewell and winked out as Lindir’s body forcefully took a breath to fill his aching lungs.  
He didn’t notice that he had stopped in the middle of the path as he stared at the place where the figure had been just a moment ago until a movement from Arwen startled him back to awareness. Eyes wide and glittering with tears, she looked as if she, too, had seen a ghost.

”My Lady Arwen?” he inquired gently, and a shudder went through her frame. Then she turned her horse around and galloped back the way they had come. Lindir stayed looking after her for a few moments more. Somehow, he felt that even though her choice was different than his, they sprang from the same source.

His steps were lighter as he turned to continue his walk down the path.


End file.
